Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations

Opinion writers take aim at the surprise suggestion from the president on Friday that if Congress can't come up with a health plan, it should just repeal Obamacare first and work on replacement later.

Los Angeles Times:
Repealing Obamacare With No Replacement? Still A Terrible Idea
The arguments against repealing Obamacare without a plan to replace it are just as strong today as they were in January. Even if you don’t like what’s happening in the markets, you shouldn’t want to increase the population of uninsured Americans by 18 million in a single year, as the Congressional Budget Office has predicted a pure repeal would cause. And you especially wouldn’t want to do that in 2018, when control of the House and Senate are up for grabs. Would you? (Jon Healey, 6/30)

The Washington Post:
Even Setting An Expiration Date On Obamacare Would Massively Disrupt The Health-Care System
President Trump had tweeted his support of the idea of passing a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act (that is, Obamacare) over the short term, setting a strict timeline for Congress to figure out a replacement. ... An expert we spoke with by phone Friday, the Brookings Institution’s Matthew Fiedler, made clear that this would not simply set a timer on replacing the existing system. While that clock ticked down, he suggested, the system would already be falling apart. (Philip Bump, 6/30)

The Baltimore Sun:
Trump's Obamacare Nightmare
The forced postponement of a Senate vote on repealing and replacing Obamacare magnifies Donald Trump's struggle to demonstrate his fitness to serve as president. His repeated assaults on the health care insurance law and his pledge to get rid of it have dominated his domestic agenda to the point that his entire administration has been stalemated, only five months into his White House tenure. (Jules Witcover, 7/3)

Roll Call:
Trump’s White Flag Signals Trust Problem
Seeing red, Donald Trump waved the white flag of surrender on Obamacare early Friday morning. The Republican-led Congress isn’t dumb enough to follow his frustrated call for lawmakers to help him repeal the law without a replacement plan attached. That’s why Trump’s tweet — “If Republican Senators are unable to pass what they are working on now, they should immediately REPEAL, and then REPLACE at a later date!” — is more the primal scream of a man in retreat than a serious proposal. But it’s also a reminder that his own party can’t trust him to stick to the plan or back up those who have taken political risks for their shared agenda. (Jonathan Allen, 7/3)

Meanwhile, other columnists try to assess problems in the federal health law and how to fix it.

The Washington Post:
Five Myths About Health Insurance
It is no wonder so many myths about health insurance persist. The U.S. health insurance system is opaque and labyrinthine, and at times purposely so. The current debate over whether to repeal major provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), otherwise known as Obamacare, comes down to whether consumers should subsidize services they never expect to use. But who pays for what, and how, is not straightforward. (Alexis Pozen, 6/30)

The Washington Post:
Nine Ways To Really Fix Obamacare
If Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell cannot salvage his party’s effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, there is still a way forward if he and his Democratic colleagues truly want to fix Obamacare. All they have to do is be willing to compromise — and to acknowledge some history. The failure of the Republicans to agree, so far, on an alternative to Obamacare should not be surprising — because Obamacare was, in fact, the long-standing Republican alternative to the more radical health-care reforms, such as a single-payer system, that Democrats have proposed since the Truman era. (Steven Brill, 6/30)

This is part of the KHN Morning Briefing, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.